Center offers myriad educational opportunities

Soldiers use computers at the Fort Carson Education Center. The center offers education and testing, college preparation and classes, and counseling and advice, in addition to the computer labs. The labs are open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Education counseling is available Monday-Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. No appointments are necessary. (Photo by Andrea Stone)

By Andrea Stone

Mountaineer staff

In a nondescript brick building are three stories, 55,000 square feet of educational opportunities for Soldiers. The Fort Carson Education Center offers a variety of programs, including education and testing for those who hope to better their Army careers, college preparation and classes, counseling and advice, and computer labs.

For Soldiers hoping to improve their General Technical score, the center offers the Basic Skills Education program and GT Prep.

“That’s really important because the Army is drawing down. A lot of Soldiers cannot re-enlist unless they have at least a 100 GT score,” said Ursula Miller-Waldrip, education services officer.

Both programs help Soldiers learn test-taking strategies and brush up on math and reading skills.

“You can only do that (test) three times in your Soldier career, and usually it’s six months between re-tests, so we want to make sure that you … reach your goal,” she said.

For those considering higher education while they’re serving on active duty, the Education Center has a variety of options.

Four colleges operate out of the education center — Pikes Peak Community College, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado State University – Pueblo and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. To be on post, the schools must be members of the Servicemembers Opportunity Colleges Consortium, which means they accept other SOC-member schools’ credits and courses.

In addition, SOC-member schools usually accept at least 25 percent of credits from testing, such as the College Level Examination Program and Defense Activity for Nontraditional Educational Support Subject Standardized Tests, commonly known as DSST.

“What that amounts to with a SOC school is, to get a two-year associate’s degree locally, what it means is only 15 semester hours have to be college-time classes. Thirty credits could come from your MOS; 15 could come from testing,” she said.

While an associate’s degree can be within relatively easy reach, a bachelor’s degree may be more desirable. For those hoping to move on to a four-year degree, the Education Center offers counseling to help Soldiers maximize their benefits.

“Maybe you have 30 semester hours from your MOS, but you want to do something (different) … we will advise you, use the associate of general studies degree so you can maximize all those credits,” Miller-Waldrip said.

“And then we tell them, when you transfer to your four-year program … probably those 30 MOS hours will not go with you,” she said. “But if you get your two-year degree, and you get promoted, and you get a bigger paycheck, and we watch how we do our other stuff, you’re still well served.”

Some Soldiers may wait, planning to use their GI Bill after they leave the Army, but that may not be the best use of the benefits.

“Use that tuition assistance that’s available while you’re on active duty rather than … using up that valuable GI Bill on basic English or basic math,” said Peter Heinz, Education Center operations manager.

Whenever Soldiers plan to use their benefits, planning is critical.

“You can fritter (the GI Bill) away awful quickly, or you can use it wisely. If you’re smart and have

done a few things already ahead of time, you can get yourself almost all the way through a master’s degree or more with what the GI bills offers,” he said.

For many Soldiers, the challenge is in just taking that first step, but the center makes it easy. No appointments are necessary, and counseling is available Monday-Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and Friday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

“You can’t start too early, and it’s never too late … the sooner you get started the better,” Heinz said. “Education is one of those things that they can’t take away from you, if you finish it.”

Sometimes Soldiers don’t pursue higher education because they don’t know what they want to do, but the center can even help with that.

“If they don’t know what they want to do, we run College 101,” he said. “It takes an hour of your time, and it helps you at least get a general idea.”

There is also a career planning program, Kuder Journey. It’s free for Soldiers and available to Family members for a small fee.

“It starts with career assessment, goals. What are you good at? What kinds of things do you want to think about? And then it takes that information and helps you filter out, here are the degrees and the programs that (fit),” Heinz said.

Counselors at the Education Center can help review the results of the assessment and direct Soldiers to the best programs and colleges.

“What we really try to do is help guide those Soldiers to the schools that will serve them the best … and make wise choices, and then be able to stay out of debt as much as possible so they don’t have to rely on loans,” he said.

In addition to the secondary education opportunities available, the Education Center also offers MOS-specific testing, such as language testing for Special Forces troops.